Eulogies of the late Republican Sen. Bob Dole noted the personal civility and spirit of political compromise he and his generation of lawmakers represented.
As Dole lay in state in the Capitol, President Joe Biden praised the Kansan’s talent for bipartisan dealmaking in the name of national unity and advancement. By implication, the president mourned the loss of these qualities in current politics.
Dole, who died at age 98, was the real deal, a World War II hero and tough-minded Senate leader who fought hard for his party’s goals, but put country before party when necessary for the national good. Much like Hawaii’s late Sen. Daniel Inouye, with whom Dole rehabilitated from war injuries.
These are admirable qualities and probably the key to our national salvation. To get there, however, we must recognize the times and challenges are different from the Dole and Inouye era.
Comity was easier when Inouye was an exception and Congress was mostly a homogeneous domain of white Protestant males. Much of today’s rancor is about making room for new people at the table as Congress more closely resembles the diversity of our country.
Pitched battles for table turf, along with new weapons such as social media, have hardened political extremes and pushed them further from the center.
This was clear in how the conservative Dole described the proudest policy achievements of his times in an essay for the Washington Post before his death.
“I grew up in what others have called the Greatest Generation,” he wrote. “Together, we put an end to Nazi tyranny. Our nation confronted Jim Crow, split the atom, eliminated the anguish of polio, planted our flag on the moon and tore down the Berlin Wall.
“Rising above partisanship, we made historic gains in feeding the hungry and housing the homeless. To make a more perfect union, we swung open the doors of economic opportunity for women who were ready to rise to their fullest potential and leave shattered glass ceilings behind them.”
Inouye, as ardent a Democrat as Dole was a Republican, probably would have had a similar list.
But today, these landmark accomplishments from the politics of compromise are often reviled and any working in common cause rejected.
Dole’s Republican Party is no more, with the current leading faction increasingly embracing its Nazi fringe,
reimposing Jim Crow voting rules in states it controls,
denying the science behind vaccines and moon landings, slashing aid to the needy and dismantling women’s rights.
The Democratic left would scorn Inouye’s moderation in their impossible haste to achieve all of their policy goals at once. Democrats are not working to undermine democracy like the GOP, but neither do they seem able to put their differences aside to save it.
You can’t love America and hate half of your fellow Americans. Those who profess patriotism should consider Dole’s warning that American greatness is “not
simply destiny.”
“It is a deliberate choice that every generation must make and work toward,” he wrote. “We cannot do it
divided.”
Reach David Shapiro at volcanicash@gmail.com.
